During surgical operation in the oral and maxillofacial region, such as neck dissection, oral tumor removal, maxillofacial trauma surgery, blood vessels may be injured, particularly at the lesion adjacent thereto. When injured, blood vessels are treated by ligation or direct closure. For large blood vessels, such as the carotid artery, which is frequently met upon neck dissection, ligation is reported to frequently cause various complications, such as cerebral infarction. In addition, direct closure of severely injured blood vessels may induce angiostenosis, leading to cerebral infarction, or neurological complications due to vascular dysfunction. Hence, development of methods and materials by which injured vessels can be simply treated for their functional maintenance and regeneration are clinically needed.
Designed to reduce the complications caused by direct closure, such as angiostenosis, occlusions, etc., vascular patches are applied to injured vessels in the cardiovascular system. Many reports on the comparison between treatment of injured blood vessels with direct closure and vascular patches have predominantly shown better results from vascular patch treatment than direct closure.
However, conventional vascular patches made of synthetic polymers such as PET, ePTFE, Gore-Tex, etc., cannot perform vascular functions for a long period of time because they are apt to cause thrombotic angiostenosis and vascular calcification due to their very poor biocompatibility. Also, the poor biocompatibility is a cause of inflammation or tissue necrosis. Further, such vascular patches are expensive. Most vascular patches are adapted for cardiac vessels, and are limitedly applied to relatively thin blood vessels in the oral and maxillofacial region.
Research has been ongoing into vascular patches that are made of biocompatible materials and which can maintain vascular morphology without causing occlusion.
As far as relevant techniques are concerned, reference may be made to the 2003 academic publication of the Korean Society for Biotechnology and Bioengineering (Development of Vascular Patch Using Mesenchymal Stem Cell and Biodegradable Matrix), and Korean Patent Unexamined Application Publication No. 10-2013-0051602 (titled “3D Silk fibroin fiber characterized in dermal substitution and method of preparation for the same”).